


Goodbye at Last

by Stuck_Y_OnYou



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Canon, Sad, Sad Ending, The End
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:00:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27109132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stuck_Y_OnYou/pseuds/Stuck_Y_OnYou
Summary: 'You mean... I should stop seeing them as I heal?'Alison's words at the hospital prove prophetic as she begins to lose sight of the ghosts.
Comments: 24
Kudos: 91





	Goodbye at Last

She’d seen less of Robin around, and had been weirdly grateful for it before his absence became truly noticeable. The lights flickered in occasion, but there were no sounds of straining, nor anyone lurking in the pantry in the early mornings. Eventually, it was obvious he simply… wasn’t there.  
“Have you done something to Robin?” she asked Julian, who seemed the likely culprit.  
Julian looked offended for a moment, then as if he understood why she might have accused him, shrugged and said, “No, he’s still around, why?”  
“I just... haven’t seen him, lately.” She watched Julian go with another shrug, writing it off as just another weirdness of her life. Robin obviously had better things to do.  
Except… except that she was now seeing less of Mary, too. And Humphrey didn’t seem to be in the way as much as usual. Even Thomas bothered her less when she was trying to have a quiet coffee by herself.  
That was the problem.

She was suddenly able to be by herself.

And she didn’t like it.

 _It’s quiet, isn’t it?_ she’d asked Mike when they went to look at that new house that time. This felt worse, though. Because she hadn’t gone anywhere.  
“Are you all angry with me, or something?” She exploded one day in the common room, looking around at the assembled ghosts who were gathered there as usual.  
Lady Button looked at the ceiling. Thomas and The Captain looked at the floor. Mary sat gently smouldering in silence, and Kitty burst into tears.  
“Kitty, what’s the matter?” Alison went over to her, patting the air above her shoulder. “What’s happened? And where’s Robin?” But, if anything, this question just seemed to make things worse, and Kitty bawled louder than ever, flapping her hands along with it.  
The other ghosts looked equally miserable, staring at Alison. Pat in particular looked bereft.  
“What’s going on?” She asked. “Why are you all... avoiding me? And what’s happened to Robin? Oh god,” she put a hand to her mouth. “Is something happening to you all? Is it that stupid priest we had come over to do that wedding? I knew we shouldn’t have let him into the -”  
“Er, no. Alison.” The Captain gave a march forward, wringing his stick. “Look, we’ve, er, talked about it, and we think we need to just tell you. Just have out with it. No more beating around the bush, so to speak. Just be plain and clear with you.”  
Alison blinked. “You’ve got to tell me what?”  
The Captain’s expression softened, just slightly. “Nothing is happening to us,” he said. “It’s something that is happening to you.”  
Alison stared.  
“Whatever it is that causes to you be able to see us...” The Captain tapped his forehead whilst, beside him, Julian made a ‘crazy’ twirl next to his own temple. “Whatever that was... it now appears to be... stopping. Coming to a close, as it were.”  
Alison felt as if she’d been punched. “That’s... That’s not possible, is it?”  
“Well, you already can’t see Robin, can you?”  
“Robin? But he’s not even in the room -”  
The ghosts turned as one to stare at an apparently empty spot beside the chess table.  
Alison followed their eyes, seeing nothing but air. And a very cold feeling clenched at her heart.  
The Captain cleared his throat. “Robin noticed it first, and we thought you might just have learned to ignore him. We insisted that had to be the case, because you were still talking to all of the rest of us. But. Apparently not. Not anymore.”  
The space beside the table remained as empty-looking as ever. Alison tried hard to see, to remember what Robin looked like and to try to project him out of her mind and into the room, but nothing happened.  
Pat took a step forward, his moustache wobbling. “You’ve noticed less of Humphrey around, too, haven’t you? And Mary?”  
She nodded. “And Thomas.”  
“I knew it!” Thomas leapt to his feet, triumphant. “I knew she wasn’t just ignoring me!” He sat down again quickly at the vexed looks everyone was giving him.  
Alison’s throat felt tight. She understood what was happening, but... “How can I stop it?” She asked.  
Lady Button let out a dramatic sigh. “That’s the thing, my dear. We have discussed it, at some length, and we don’t think you should stop it.”  
“But you’re -”  
“Dead,” Fanny interrupted. “And you are very much alive. It’s not healthy for you to keep on as you are. You need to - to go and live your life, without the company of the dead.” She sniffed dramatically, and walked away to stare at the wall.  
“But I don’t want to lose you!” Alison shouted. “Any of you!”  
“But Alison,” Pat said quietly, “you already did.”  
  
*  
  
She expects them to go in order, from the oldest down to the youngest, but it turns out that that’s not how it works.  
After Robin, and then Humphrey, it’s Lady Button who disappears from Alison’s sight. Alison realises it one evening when Kitty is talking to her as they have a girls’ night and sit watching _The Great British Bake-Off._ Fanny usually joins them, contemptuous of the baking and the contestants, but that night she gives no replies and doesn’t even seem to be in the room. When Alison asks if Fanny is there, Kitty gives a wail and runs straight through the nearest wall in anguish, leaving Alison staring at the sofa, not knowing whether her distant relative is still there, or not.  
It feels strange, mourning the long dead whose lives she is almost ignorant of, but she mourns anyway. She still says good morning to them all as she walks through the house, though Robin in no longer doing his crossword and Humphrey’s head is missing from where he usually lays to read. Thomas isn’t always there for his music, and on the days he is, Alison relishes his cheeriness and wonders how she ever found him annoying. On the days he isn’t there, she plays a record anyway. She can’t explain to Mike why she does this, but he doesn’t pry. He feels their absence too, through her.  
Mary comes and goes over a few days, the smoking smell lingering long after she’s disappeared from view. Alison doesn’t complain, though she wonders if she is walking through Mary and causing her discomfort, which she doesn’t want to do. She talks to Mary when she can smell smoke, and it makes her feel better though she has no proof the ghost is actually there. The smell feels like an old memory, coiling dark fingers through the air.  
The Captain vanishes in almost a comedic fashion, standing up in fury during their film night when they watch _Saving Private Ryan_ , and disappearing on the spot, still apoplectic with rage at some military tactic he disapproved of. Alison is so shocked she laughs, then feels terrible for days.

Julian is equally memorable, having used his last visible and audible moments to try to get Alison to write his biography. Which, at a mere three thousand words is unlikely to go on to be a bestseller. Still, she seals up what she has written and put it into the safe, just to be on the safe side. She has a feeling Julian would appreciate that.  
Kitty and Thomas are quieter. They go to bed one night and never get up again, at least to Alison’s eyes. She misses them both intensely, looking at empty seats beside herself and wondering if - hoping that - they are keeping her company. It pains Alison that Kitty never got to say goodbye, or to finish talking about what happened to her. And it hurts that Thomas most likely is still there, following Alison around. She still plays the records for him, every morning, and wonders if he still listens.  
The cellar looks empty.  
The kitchen is quiet.  
Even the pigeon is finally out of sight.  
  
*  
  
Pat is the last to go.  
He lingers for days and days after Kitty and Thomas, quietly padding around with Alison, talking to her about the weather, about the house, about what the past was like and what the future might be. Mike, worried about his wife and about the ghosts, asks after Pat every few hours, and the two of them realise that he is their last link to a strange few years and unique friendships that you could never find anywhere else.  
“Are you staying with me, do you think?” Alison asks Pat, eventually. “Just you and me now, is it?” It’s close to midnight, in the kitchen. Alison has a decaf tea, and Pat looks very tired, as though somehow he always has.  
“No, I don’t think so,” Pat says mildly. “I expect I’m just hanging on for a bit.”  
“Why?”  
“Not sure. I thought it might be because I’ve got children still alive, you know? My boy, and his boy... little Pat. But you’re Lady Button’s relative, so I’m not sure if that makes sense.” He pauses. “The others say that they’re not sure why, but Julian thinks it’s because – no, I’m not saying that,” he glares at a spot by the toaster.

Alison has to smile. “Are they all here?”

Pat nods. “Yes, they’re all here. The whole gang, still together!” He chortles, humourlessly. Then, his face falls. “I’m going to miss you,” he says.  
And Alison can only nod, because her throat is made of broken glass.  
“You don’t have to worry about us, mind. We don’t need feeding!” He chuckles.  
She laughs stupidly, more of a sigh that wobbles, really, with a bit of sound in it.  
He smiles at her, painfully. Then it vanishes. “Will you stay? Here, at the house?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“We’d like you to. I mean, I know I would. Not that we want to tie you here forever, of course. It’s just... we’ve got used to each other, haven’t we?”  
“I don’t know, Pat,” she says again, looking at her cooling mug of tea. “It’s hard knowing that you’re all gone -” She turns to look at him.  
But Pat has disappeared.  
And the house is silent.  
Alison looks down at the table, where Pat’s hands were resting a moment ago. She puts her own hand over the spot, trying to convince herself that it feels colder that the rest of the room.


End file.
